Why do you break a horse in a closed-in pen?

Question

You know how the fence doesnt have any holes in it? Also, what does the wrangler do to break a horse?

Answer 1

You don't want to be on a green horse in the middle of the road and the horse take off. That is where the round pen comes in. Also if you take a bust the horse is gonna be easier to catch in a closed pen.

Answer 2

breaking as it is called is should be a slow and painless process for both rider and horse.

It gets down usually in a round pen, the latter portion of the job I mean, because horses are creatures of flight, if startled or if they are frightened during this process, their first instinct is to run. and a large round pen allows them to have this freedom, with very little casualties to either horse or rider. And the no holes in the fence allows less distractions between horse and teacher and rest of the world.But on the other hand, in the real world one doesn't always have access to a decent round pen. and horsemanship has evolved over thousands of years, so there are many ways to teach your horse the skills he will need to survive in our world.

heres what I would do. I have just received a young horse, let's say a yearling.

first I would turn him out in  a pasture with other horses and at least one or two older horses, and in a perfect world, I would have an older mare in the mix. And would keep him there in this type of situation, for a year or so, all the while handling the other horses and slowly handling willy (our new young horse on the farm) more and more. Horses learn from each other vast amounts of survival informations, and also willy will learn from seeing the interactions between people and other horses.

As our first year is coming to a close, me and willy have been learning many new things together slowly and somewhat repetitiously(Be careful with too much repetition)

for the past 2 or 3 months while willy has been in his stall after or sometimes before eating, we work together on our communication skills and I've been teaching willy how lead and walk with me on a cotton lead rope tied to the bottom of his halter, and we make it fun and we've already developed a respect and friendship. At this time we are learning each others touch and smell, how to read and understand each other, without too many words,very important.horses are not so verbal, kinda between a dog and a cat. horses learn more from seeing and feeling.

Let's say willy is 2 or closer to three(to me the longer we can wait toward 3 yrs. old the better. In my experience I've seen too many horses experience many types of painful complications and/or death, because we work them to hard at too young of age while their bones are still growing. And this alone will make our horse bitter, and pissed off with good reason, we've just taken away his(willy that is) ability to flee, and thus he is a changed horse) THIS WE DON"T WANT.

For me anyway I want to share my life with a real horse, one with spirit and soundness in tact. And in our world, me and willy that is, we've got time, so we waight. And while we wait we do ground.

slowly willy is gonna learn what a saddle and bridle is even if it is a noseband type bridle without a bit.

but willy is learning to take a bit. And from the ground and behind him I will slowly and gently teach him to steer.When putting a bit in a horses mouth, there are many mistakes to be made in this simple procedure, 1. warm the bit in your hands or warm water or under your coat before you put it in your horses mouth, many bad habits can arise from not doing this.

after the bit is in his mouth,2. be very careful with his ears, open the brible wide, and over the past year I've worked on this step, this is not the first time willy has had me putting something over his ears. 3. most of this is learned while in the safety of his own stall, the place that is his home while not in the feilds. He is comfortable here and he has been in the same stall, not so important, but this part is in the cosistantcy that I'm talking about.

Now willy is almost a three year old. Our groundwork is almost done and I wait for the day that we're gonna ride out of this place and explore the world beyond the fences alone or with friends.

Willy has had a saddle on for about a couple a weeks, never has he felt a tight girthstrap yet. This is very important. Even my older horses never feel this, esp. when you first tighten a girth,

keep it somewhat loose. walk em a little tighten it a little more, walk, even in their stall, let em take a few steps, until your saddle is set. I've seen people ignore this arogently and the horse will begin to hate the saddle and the also the one that brings it, to tack em up. they'll bite at ya, as your pullin the girth up, kick at ya, wheel round in their stall and present their backside to keep ya out of their space,

all these habits you want to avoid, and are avoidable.

So now willy is very comfortable with all this saddle and bridle, he knows how  to lead on a leadrope, steer with a bit, he's felt a saddle and the girth almost tight enuogh to ride, by now.

it's a quite day around the farm, but there is one more thing to do before I sit on his back, he needs to feel my weight on his back, and throughout our time together and esp. lately, I've straddled him playing around, but not with my legs, only my body like a sandbag, but don't use a sandbag, use your body.

Today is the day that I am gonna straddle him, and remmember we don't have access to a round pen, which I wouldn't use for this, I always mount a horse for the first time in his life in his STALL.

After 4 or 5 days of practicing in his stall, if I had a round pen I would use it now, but I don't, so me and willy ride out of the stall together, now  I am sitting on a horse and there are no barriers, and no human alive is strong enough to stop this horse from doing whatever it wants to do, and remember these are creatures of flight, being there first instinct, I sure hope my horse likes me, I wouldn't want to be sitting on a pissed off horse at this particular moment.

So this is one way to break a horse, without really breaking him.

The American Indians used to first get on them in a river or pond, very smart.

Do your research, take your time, know your horse, try to become good friends and have fun, horses like to have fun too.

the difference between a good horseman/women is tested on   the edge of a bluff looking 300 feet straight down, A good horse and rider can sit calmly knowing that that they will make it to the bottom of that bluff safely , while a bad team should be sweatin.

Answer 3

The 'Round Pen' is used for a number of reasons...it helps to keep distractions to a minimum.

Breaking/training is best done when both horse and trainer are better able to communicate.

As for the 'breaking' you are asking about done by a 'wrangler' it depends on the individual and what works for them.

For me, true training begins when the horse is foaled...but not everyone can be there for that...training is a life long learning process for both horse and rider.

As for learning the basics such as saddling and bridling, stall manners, and proper under tack behavior can either be done quickly and harshly, as we are familiar with seeing in the old movies, when cowboys would basically bully the horse into doing what they wanted done...breaking the horses spirit....or the more genteel and time consuming hands on from the foal...letting each individual horse learn at their *no pun intended here*...pace.